Description

This document on how I configure NixOS on NanoPC-T4 and contains my original collection of notes and links when researching how to do this.

Solution

Booting

To install NixOS on you can follow the official instructions by downloading the pre-built images. You can also build the U-Boot image yourself from nixpkgs based on changes added in #111034.

NixOS Config

The basic configuration should look something like this:

{
  # Disable Grub in favor of ExtLinux
  boot.loader.grub.enable = false;
  # Enables the generation of /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
  boot.loader.generic-extlinux-compatible.enable = true;
  # Enable additional firmware (such as Wi-Fi drivers).
  hardware.enableRedistributableFirmware = true;
}

To make the NVMe SSD be detected at boot compile Rockchip modules directly into the kernel:

{
  boot.kernelPatches = [{
    name = "pcie-rockchip-config.patch";
    patch = null;
    extraConfig = ''
      PHY_ROCKCHIP_PCIE y
      PCIE_ROCKCHIP_HOST y
    '';
  }];
}

For more details see the PCI NVMe document.

NixOS on ZFS

My solution was to migrate the OS from the eMMC storage to the NVMe.

I create the ZFS pool and three filesystems on the SSD:

zpool create -O xattr=sa -O acltype=posixacl -O mountpoint=none rpool /dev/nvme0n1
for vol in nix root home; do
    zfs create -o mountpoint=legacy rpool/$VOL
    mkdir /mnt/$VOL
    mount.zfs rpool/$VOL /mnt/$VOL
done
rsync -rax /. /mnt/root
rsync -rax /nix/. /mnt/nix
rsync -rax /home/. /mnt/home
rsync -rax /boot/. /

And I create a configuration that looks something like this:

{
  fileSystems."/boot" = { device = "/dev/disk/by-uuid/1234-5678"; fsType = "ext4"; };
  fileSystems."/" = { device = "rpool/root"; fsType = "zfs"; };
  fileSystems."/nix" = { device = "rpool/nix"; fsType = "zfs"; };
  fileSystems."/home" = { device = "rpool/home"; fsType = "zfs"; };
}

And rebuild he system:

sudo nixos-rebuild boot

After that it's necessary to run all the four rsync commands again to sync filesystems.

Once everything is synced you can finally reboot.

Notes

• UART Console
• U-Boot
• Upgrade Tool
• PCI NVMe
• Logs
• Links